8.04.2008

Looks like most of us made it out of bed this morning. Yay for that. Here's some lightly bitter reading material to catch up after the weekend:

- Heather Havrilesky of Salon crunches the numbers (over and over) and discovers that L.A.'s cost of living will doom any and all possible plans for a comfortable future. Don't worry. I'm sure it's totally different for D.C.

- Our little Rusty revels in his escape from this place, and new-found joy through his new gig reviewing Lifetime Movies.

- If you manage an escape from the office, Richard Misrach's display at the National Gallery of Art explores themes of alienation, despair and "disquietude." His exhibit of brightly lit, but isolated and self-referential figures, reflects the corresponding hopelessness of the D.C. intern culture's collective struggle to become a favorite West Wing character.

- And, of course, the cure for our city of callow comes from What Would Don Draper Do? If you don't know who that is, go back to bed. There's no hope for your kind.

While I thought Rusty was extra whiny he at least made an effort to let the readers hate with him.

Liz I have no idea what your hating on. I agree the comments section is an annoying part of blog-ealty but spending more time fighting trolls then writing coherent posts is just not working out for me.

I really just want a place where I can hate DC for what's wrong with it. I wish you luck. It's probably just a matter of getting into a groove. But I'm done waiting.

George - trolls do not equal "readers." Trolls are just wandering graffiti artists shitting for the fun of it. That's fine. I will delete you if you do it here. I don't see any reason for the handwringing.

The rest of you. You keep threatening to leave and then not doing it. Why IS that?

Why don't you put some effort into writing blog posts rather than posting infrequently and spending days in between posts telling message board commentators how much they suck? If you have the time to comment, you certainly have the time to post. The blog is Why I Hate DC, not Why I Hate My Message Board.

I'm a non-troll, but occasional reader over the past few years and all three of the blog's incarnations. The tone of the blog has totally changed. I'm not saying that tips of things to do around DC are BAD, I read DCist regularly and think it's a good blog. But...this blog used to be about hating DC, not proving that the blogger is cool for watching Mad Men (which I also love), or that the blogger is worldly-wise for going to the National Gallery (again, ditto, love). It also didn't used to be about comment wars, as far as I could tell; I didn't always read the comments. I would drop by every couple of weeks hoping for a hilarious rant about Laura Sessions Stepp or Late Night Shots, and that was enough for me. Those days are gone, but aren't there still a lot of things to hate about DC? Start with the weather and work up? I don't know, it just seemed a lot more fun around here before. I guess now it's just another blog about fun things to do in DC, and frequent references to "back home," wherever that is. Meh.

whatever you want to call this blog now, its definitely better than with shitty rusty. the only time i laughed while reading this blog during rusty's tenure is when one commenter said that rusty would suck 10 dicks to get a job at the city paper. liz, stop linking to that fucking hack.

George - trolls do not equal "readers." Trolls are just wandering graffiti artists shitting for the fun of it. That's fine. I will delete you if you do it here. I don't see any reason for the handwringing.

The rest of you. You keep threatening to leave and then not doing it. Why IS that?

Given the recent change in tone and content of the blog, I've decided to start my own. I'm trying to hold on to the hate. Please visit dislikedc.blogspot.com and check it out. It's still very young, but with your input and patronage, I hope it can grow into a decent blog.

There should be a certain amount of snark to a blog entitled "Why I Hate D.C." Unfortunately, you spend more time insulting your readers than you do putting thought into your blog posts. They are often lack context (leaving the reader confused), are poorly written, and not unique to the D.C. experience.

And...in reality, the readers who comment on your blog aren't "trolls." They're legitimate readers who are very frankly giving you feedback that you should at least consider. Many people who tune into your blog also read the comments, and part of the semi-rude banter (again, "trolls") is why people actually keep coming back to blog that is obviously a bitch-fest. Without that commentary, many people will not come back. Honestly, your prose isn't engaging enough for people to keep their interest.

When you took over this blog, what did you expect? This is not a group of readers who will just agree with you because you put up some random musings. This is one time you should consider your audience (trolls and those anonymous readers), post clear concise reasons on why DC sucks, provide documentation so people have context on what you're talking about...

Stream of consciousness may work for some of the literary greats, but this is a blog. And you are no J.D. Salinger.

The blog came with some trolls who had been enjoying a "die, die, die," theme to their comments. I agree that is probably something fun to do. I don't agree that I owe you a place to leave those comments.

The policy I'm following is that if, in ANY WAY, you can come up with the basic test for free speech, the comment stays. If you're too dumb to think of anything more thoughtful to say than "she sucks," then I'm not required to humor you.

But i do kind of enjoy the trolls. They're like whiny two-year-olds. "Listen, listen, listen to me or I'll hold my breath and stop reading your blog!" "I'm very important because I'm judging you!" "Don't you CARE about me?"

It's needy and pathetic and I've rather enjoyed watching them melt down.

But I know that I don't actually owe anyone a place to work out their childhood issues. The sense of entitlement you guy are displaying is really weird.